Virtual concert provider Wave announced they have raised $30m in a Series B funding round which was led by Maveron and had participation from Griffin Gaming Partners, NTT DOCOMO Ventures, Avex, Superfly Ventures, Convivialite Ventures, Raised in Space and individuals Scooter Braun, Alex Rodriguez, Superfly co-founder Rick Farman, and Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin.
Wave said the funding will be used to go beyond concerts and into the broader entertainment experience space which will include the gaming and social spheres to expand their capabilities and different markets they will operate within with the company planning to expand into Japan and China.
Speaking on the funding round Wave co-founder and CEO Adam Arrigo said: “It’s a privilege to be supported by such distinguished investors like Maveron and Griffin Gaming Partners, who have funded breakout consumer businesses. The added support from several new strategic partners shows the entertainment industry is looking for new, interactive ways to connect with today’s digital generation.”
Wave is not the only company testing out the digital events arena with Aircards providing augmented reality experiences to replace live corporate events such as product launches, conferences, and career fairs.
It was only recently that Epic Games announced that the live concert they hosted for Travis Scott in Fortnite drew more than 27 million viewers to his show labeled Astronomical and DJ Marshmello brought in more than 10 million people in 2019.
The virtual concert provider was originally a VR company for music and they’ve now pivoted to doing live digital live events and due to the Coronavirus pandemic, the need for this technology has witnessed a significant increase in popularity.
The technology has shown promising results in the gaming industry but Arigo said he wants to get the Wave platform popular in other entertainment spaces that aren’t targeted just to gamers.
The idea being to gain bigger popularity which will likely attract other music stars from classical music where they’ve had violinist Lindsey Stirling performing which was attended by over 400,000 people to rock music such as Led Zeppelin.
Credit: Wave
The virtual concert provider has its events distributed across all major platforms including YouTube, Twitch, and Facebook while being available on the Wave app for Steam and Oculus.
Arrigo explained why they pivoted the company to further VR fields by saying: “I worked on the Rock Band games back in the day, and I’ve always been about finding new ways for artists to express themselves through these [mediums], like virtual reality, where we started. About a year and a half ago, before the Marshmello show in Fortnite, we pivoted beyond VR and started doing deals with gaming platforms and livestreaming services to take the core experience for VR into broader distribution.”
The Los Angeles, USA-based virtual concert provider now has 50 employees and with the new funding will continue hiring for their planned expansion into different country markets and having the team to support their initiatives.
The virtual concert provider Wave works with music labels, management companies, and independent artists to stage these virtual concerts that feature digital avatars of popular musicians with the most recent announcement being One Wave – a series of virtual shows featuring John Legend and Tinashe.
“I want to work with today’s most forward-thinking leaders in music and technology,” said Braun, the music manager and funding round investor who works with artists including Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber. “The future of the industry depends on it. Adam and his team at Wave are bridging these two very important industries to create transformative experiences for the next generation of concert-goers, with a refreshingly artist-first approach.”
This Series B funding round brings the virtual concert provider to a total of $40m raised to date which includes investments from existing investors RRE Ventures and Upfront Ventures.
